Shiviti plaques are a category of Hebrew manuscripts with devotional and apotropaic character. This small-sized Shiviti manuscript was created by the Chief Rabbi of Athens Joseph de Chaves about 1910, to be kept between the pages of one’s prayer book. Such documents are inscribed with the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable four-letter name of God, and the first words of the verse “I have set the Lord always before me…” (Psalm 16: 8), as a prompt for contemplation on the presence of God. It bears also the text of Psalm 67, written in the shape of a Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, and various acronyms of biblical verses, invoking divine blessing.
© The Jewish Museum of Greece
